Post the Best 'Cherry-Picks' You've ever Made in Ancient Coins.

That's a particularly awesome example, since it shares a reverse type (including the prow) with the famous later Ostrogothic large bronze issue (not my coin):



Maybe your coin served as the model! Congrats, I'm super jealous!!

 

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I have posted this coin various times on CT before, however, I never told the story behind it (mainly because it was auctioned by CNG). Anyway, here is the coin, and the story continues below:


AR Penny Cnut, rex daenorvm type. Rev: garbled legend.

This penny was part of a collection I bought for ca. €200. It contained, apart from this penny, two other pennies of Aethelred, two large Dutch post-medieval silver coins, a couple of high-grade silver denari and antoniani, three Venetian Grosso's, several very nice bronze Greek coins, and some fake coins as well.

At first, I was unable to identify the three Anglo-Saxon coins, but my friend @AnYangMan told me (more or less this way, I expect: ) that they were a) Anglo-Saxon pennies, b) rather rare (the two Aethelred pennies) and c) the Cnut penny was extremely rare. As far as I know, only two other Rex Daenorum types exists.

As my collection is eclectic (or rather unfocused), I decided to keep one Aethelred, and sell the Cnut and the other Aethelred. So when I had to visit Oxford for work, London's CNG office was nearby, and I paid them a visit, and left the coin consigned at $2000.

It later sold at $1900, which was a bit of a pity, as I was told it might as well sell at $3000-4000. Anyway, that's the gamble. So now for the math. When dividing the price paid for the whole collection by the number of coins in it, I paid €7,50 for it. It sold for $1900, which, after auction costs and $ >> € would result in €1400, i.e. 186 times the price I paid for it. This will probably be my record cherry picking story, and I must say, I enjoyed it

 

This coin does not exactly fit the definition of cherry-pick but I consider it to be a very fortunate find. I had been following one of my favorite dealers in Israel for several months and received a notification that he was selling some new inventory. I decided to buy it before it disappeared to another collector.

 

Almost forgot, I also got this for only $13 (misidentified by the seller as an unknown Byzantine).

Khosrau II, Sassanian Empire
AE 12 nummi
Obv: Facing bust of Khusru II, beardless, wearing chlamys and crown surmounted by a cross; star to left, crescent to right
Rev: Cross potent on globe, I to left, B to right
Mint: Alexandria
Mintmark: ALEZ
Date: 618-628 AD
Ref: SB 855

 

And melted church silver-turned-scarce Byzantine coin for only $20:

Heraclius (with Heraclius Constantine), Byzantine Empire
AR hexagram
Obv: dd NN hERACLIUS Et hERA CONSt, Heraclius on left and Heraclius Constantine on right, seated facing on double-throne, each holding cross on globe in right hand, small cross above
Rev: dEUS AdIUtA ROmANIS, Cross-potent on globe above three steps; monogram to left, I in left field
Date: 615-638 AD
Mint: Constantinople
Ref: SB 801
22 mm wide, 6 gr.
(attribution information from Wildwinds)

(same coin different angles)